Afghanistan: Answering Kit Knightly’s “6 Questions”
Andrew Korybko
This article was originally published on One World Press in response to this piece by one of our editors. But in the interests of promoting honest debate and diverse views on current affairs, we thought it would be a great addition to OffG. Feel free to compare and contrast the pieces in the comments below, or add your own interpretation.
OffGuardian’s Kit Knightly published a thought-provoking piece titled “6 Questions We NEED To Ask About Afghanistan”. He raises some very relevant questions that should be of interest to all observers.
In the order that they were presented, these are:
- Did the Taliban really just win?
- Is the chaos real?
- What about the heroin?
- Will there be any political fallout?
- Is there another “refugee crisis” on the way?
- Will we see a major terrorist attack?
As someone who’s covered Afghanistan very closely since the Taliban was first hosted in Moscow back in February 2019, I’d like to share my answers to these questions. Before doing so, however, readers should review the following analyses where I elaborate on my views.
As I wrote in “Why America Couldn’t Win Its War In Afghanistan”, the US’ grand strategic goal of exporting regime changes throughout the broader region through a combination of Color Revolutions and terrorism (Hybrid War) failed due to the targeted states’ resilience, which actually worked to bring them closer together and thus made it impossible for the US’ true goal there to ever succeed.
The US might have intended to sow the seeds of chaos throughout the course of its hasty withdrawal by deliberately leaving a security vacuum for ISIS-K to exploit in the event that its Afghan allies couldn’t hold the Taliban at bay.
The Taliban of today is remarkably different from the one that everyone remembers since it promised to cut ties with international terrorists, is much more inclusive of minority groups, promised to respect minorities’ and women’s rights, and aspires to pragmatically cooperate with the region for mutually beneficial economic ends.
The Afghan Civil will not turn into a regional proxy war. The Taliban’s capture of many Afghan border crossings at the time preempted the scenario of some regional countries arming anti-Taliban proxies, the possibility of which was further reduced by the group’s pragmatic political ties with Russia in recent years, which used to be one of the former “Northern Alliance’s” top sponsors.
Upon realizing that it’ll never succeed with its initial grand strategic goal in Afghanistan, the US finally commenced its withdrawal from the country but intends to subsequently expand its influence throughout the region via economic means through PAKAFUZ and the “New Quad” (both of which are explained in the article).
The US, China, India, Pakistan, and Russia will reshape South Asia. All of these countries except for India have common interests in promoting Central Asian-South Asian connectivity in the aftermath of America’s Afghan withdrawal, but New Delhi might act as a spoiler if it continues to formulate its relevant policies under the influence of geopolitics instead of geo-economics.
The US might attempt to exploit the Afghan refugee crisis provoked by its hasty withdrawal from the country in order to pressure Pakistan and Turkey as punishment for their increasingly independent foreign policies in recent years, including Islamabad’s refusal to allow Washington to set up military bases in the country.
The Taliban’s lightning-fast offensive across Afghanistan took Western governments by surprise (despite the CIA reportedly predicting that the country’s rapid collapse was one of several scenarios), which is why they still had so many of their citizens there and were therefore in such a panic to get them out as soon as possible.
The US withdrawal was a spectacular failure. The US could have “saved face” to an extent had it established military tripwires for deterring Taliban attacks until after its withdrawal was completed in parallel with forcing former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to compromise on a political solution aimed at smoothly facilitating the creation of a transitional government.
Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan’s former leader was too egotistical to step down per the Taliban’s demand for him to do so as their only condition for participating in an interim government, which also showed that he was willing to defy his American patrons until the very end in this respect and there wasn’t anything they could do to change his mind.
Russia’s Pragmatic Stance Towards The Taliban Debunks Western Fearmongering. In complete contradiction to the Western Mainstream Media narrative, Russian officials claimed that the situation in Afghanistan was almost entirely under control after the Taliban’s takeover, an interpretation of events that they subsequently built upon here, here, here, here, and here.
The confusion in many observers’ minds due to everything that’s recently happened provoked wild speculation among some such as popular conservative commentator Candace Owens who theorized that Biden merely did all of this at China’s behest, which I very strongly disagreed with and explained why.
Many were also confused by the chaos at the Kabul Airport, which I explained was due to a combination of American incompetence as earlier elaborated in my prior pieces above and the US’ subsequent efforts to weaponize the embarrassing optics in order to discredit the Taliban and thus distract from its own failures.
Some influential leftist activists in the Alt-Media Community came up with the theory that the Taliban are secretly American proxies since they have difficulty accepting that the US really lost its War on Afghanistan and struggle to understand its geo-economic backup plans that I earlier elaborated upon above.
Contrary to popular opinion nowadays, the US’ abandonment of its Afghan allies was actually predated by its partial abandonment of Poland and Ukraine with respect to their Nord Stream II interests, which shows that what recently happened in South Asia isn’t a fluke but part of a new strategic pattern.
Having summarized my views from over the past four months, it’s now time to answer Knightly’s thought-provoking questions and address some of the pertinent points that he raised in each one:
*
Q1. “Did the Taliban really just win?”
A. Yes.
The US still has contractors in the country like Knightly pointed out, but they’re unable to influence the course of events. It’s true that the Taliban were largely unopposed, but this is because many members of the Afghan National Army (ANA) didn’t want to die for former President Ghani’s ego, knew that they couldn’t rely on US air support to back them up if they entered into battle, some of them secretly sympathized with the Taliban (which gradually transformed from a a terrorist group into a national liberation movement), and the Taliban offered many of them to surrender since it was easier than fighting them.
The US military equipment that fell into the Taliban’s hands was supposed to aid the ANA and their militia allies. America didn’t anticipate its proxies surrendering to the Taliban en masse. If anything, it might have had the backup plan of hoping that this equipment fell into ISIS-K’s hands with time instead of the Taliban’s, but the latter defied most expectations by taking over the country before that could happen.
It’s true that there was a deal, of sorts, with the Taliban, but not to hand control of the country and all that equipment over to it. There was supposed to be a transitional government, but former President Ghani refused to resign to facilitate it.
The US wasn’t going to pull the ANA’s American-supplied equipment upon realizing that its long-negotiated diplomatic plan (which was the result of the Extended Troika’s talks that also consisted of China, Pakistan, and Russia) failed. That would have triggered a so-called “crisis of confidence”, though in hindsight the consequent collapse of the ANA that would have followed happened anyhow.
The US also wasn’t going to publicly pressure former President Ghani since that also might have provoked the aforementioned crisis that accelerated the country’s feared collapse. In other words, the US was genuinely caught in a dilemma of its own making.
*
Q2. Is the chaos real?
A. Yes and no.
The chaos at the Kabul Airport is real and the direct result of the US’ plans completely collapsing as was explained, but Russia already debunked the Western Mainstream Media’s misleading reports about nationwide chaos in the areas under the Taliban’s control. It was impossible for those same media forces to cover up the US’ disastrous withdrawal so they simply embraced it by reporting on how similar the optics are to Saigon.
Some might speculate, and not without reason, that part of the purpose is to discredit Biden ahead of what some have feared might be Harris’ planned power grab against him at the behest of her “deep state” allies.
The questionable footage from the Kabul Airport showing mostly male crowds (some of whom were behaving nonchalantly) instead of women and children is due to those being the ones who mostly collaborated with the occupying forces and went there in the hope of fleeing their homeland in order to escape the Taliban’s possible revenge (which they in any case promised not to do as part of their general amnesty). Afghans, and especially males, also don’t usually panic much either since it’s seen as a sign of weakness in their culture.
As for the amusing footage of Taliban fighters playing in amusement parks and even trolling Biden by eating ice cream (widely known to be one of his favorite foods), that’s just part of their new public relations strategy to show the world that they’ve changed.
They don’t want the international community to consider them a threat anymore since they hope to be cautiously welcomed by it in the coming future and recognized as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. Some Western Mainstream Media outlets might have ulterior perception management motives related to propagating those images, but the Taliban certainly didn’t stage them for that purpose.
*
Q3. What about the heroin?
A. The Taliban banned it and Mexico might replace Afghanistan as the world’s supplier.
Knightly is right to wonder what will happen to the CIA’s illegal drug proceeds since Afghanistan currently supplies 90% of the world’s heroin, but his article came out the same day as the Taliban’s press conference where the group’s representative announced that drugs will now be banned and therefore wasn’t able to be incorporated into his piece.
The Taliban also requested that “The international community should help us so that we can have alternative crops. We can provide alternative crops. Then, of course, very soon, we can bring [the drug scourge] to an end.”
Unbeknownst to many, Russia had the world’s largest number of heroin addicts (over two million) since the start of the last decade but might have been surpassed by the US only recently after America’s latest drug crisis.
Moscow might therefore contribute to the Taliban’s plans to provide alternative crops for cultivation in order to replace opium. Others like China might also chip in as well, not necessarily because their societies are severely affected by that drug, but even if only because their efforts help them portray themselves as responsible members of the international community. It’s therefore possible that opium might be eradicated there.
Regarding the CIA’s need to replace its lost drug proceeds in that scenario, it might very well just open up shop closer to its own borders. Although opium cultivation in northern Mexico recently dropped according to a UN report, potential production remains stable and yields per acre have improved.
Moreover, the Mexican President might be considering that plant’s legalization, which could easily be exploited by CIA-connected drug cartels there even if his intentions are pure.
This scenario is realistic since the US already has a sizeable heroin market so using Mexico as the CIA’s new base of operations can reduce costs, increase usage, and boost profits.
*
Q4. Will there be any political fallout?
A. Perhaps.
Knightly astutely points out that the Western Mainstream Media’s surprising criticism of Biden might be meant to precondition the public into accepting Harris’ possible power play against him sometime in the future. This is possible and should be taken seriously.
Regarding their reporting about Russia and China, this is likely being hyped in order to beat up Biden in the press like Knightly notes and also fearmonger about the US’ two top Great Power competitors. It should be pointed out, however, that his claims about those two recognizing the Taliban are incorrect. Russia and China both denied it, but they do have pragmatic ties with the group.
Knightly is correct in observing that “They’ve (Russia, China, and the US in this context) shown us that, when they really need to, they work together to the same end” since this is convincingly proven by their governments’ support of the conventional COVID-19 narrative, but it’s questionable with respect to his innuendo that this might be the case with their geo-economic competition over Afghanistan’s estimated $3 trillion worth of rare earth minerals. He’s right that corporations sometimes exert disproportionate influence over nation-states, but these same corporations still intensely compete with one another for resources.
All three of their pertinent corporations aspire for a piece of Afghanistan’s $3 trillion rare earth mineral pie, but it’s more realistic to expect Russia’s and China’s to cooperate to this end than all three of theirs’ including the US’. It’s much more likely that the US’ corporations will continue intensifying their competition against China’s, including in Afghanistan.
In any case, Knightly is right in remarking that “the profits from the war, the lithium and the heroin will all end up going to the same few pockets”, but those same pockets will likely compete for their share and not all cooperate (except perhaps in the case of Russian and Chinese mining companies).
*
Q5. Is there another “refugee crisis” on the way?
A. Yes and no.
It’ll be very difficult for any real refugee crisis to occur since all of Afghanistan’s neighbors are closely guarding their borders with that country and are afraid that terrorists might infiltrate into their territory under such a guise.
Nevertheless, it’s clear that many Afghans want to flee their homeland out of fear of what the Taliban’s return to power might mean for their previously Western-supported lifestyles and even their own lives if they earlier collaborated with the occupiers. Most of these people will probably remain in refugee camps along the borders and won’t make succeed in making it to Western countries.
Some will, though, but these will mostly be those Afghans who collaborated with the occupying forces. There’s genuine anger among some of the Western masses at their government’s failure to rescue their local allies due to how afraid everyone is of their fate under the Taliban in spite of the group’s promise not to exact retribution against them.
That said, Knightly is correct in pointing out how this could be exploited by corporations. He also makes some excellent points with respect to how their relocation to Western countries can contradict several of those governments’ prevailing narratives in certain cases, including the mainstream one about COVID-19.
Knightly’s warning about how Western countries could extricate some of their local assets under the cover of being refugees should be taken seriously, as should his associated one about how some of those fleeing individuals might be radicalized (whether before arriving in their new countries or afterwards).
It’s also possible that Western intelligence agencies might either purposely ignore signs of their radicalization or perhaps even directly get involved in that happening in order to facilitate forthcoming attacks (whether passively or actively) to serve as the pretext for promulgating the potentially preplanned policies that might follow.
*
Q6. Will we see a major terrorist attack?
A. Perhaps, but it probably won’t have anything to do with Afghanistan.
Knightly did a journalistic service by compiling all the warnings from the Western Mainstream Media about how another terrorist attack might be expected in the aftermath of the latest Afghan developments.
This certainly makes it seem like the so-called “powers that be” are preconditioning the public to expect something of the sort sometime in the coming future, whether it be “naturally occurring” or the product of their intelligence agencies as was touched upon in the last sentence to the prior question.
In any case, it’s important to be aware of how actively this narrative is being propagated and to question why that is.
Some of the purposes behind this information campaign other than the possible one that was mentioned above might be connected to deleigtimizing the Taliban as revenge for it humiliating the West with its lightning-fast takeover of Afghanistan.
The US and its allies always seek to exploit the public’s fear of whatever it might be, whether it’s the threat of Taliban-inspired terrorism or COVID-19. In this case, fearmongering about forthcoming terrorist attacks could be intended to cast doubt on the Taliban’s promise to cut ties with international terrorist groups in order to perpetuate its international isolation as long as possible.
Another reason might be to establish the pretext for missile strikes against alleged terrorist camps in Afghanistan following a future terrorist attack if the US claims that it was somehow or another connected to that country even if it doesn’t present any evidence of this (or its evidence is unconvincing).
That scenario could allow the US to save some face before the global public by showing that it’s still supposedly resolute about fighting terrorism in or associated with Afghanistan even after its withdrawal. It could also be exploited as a pretext for sanctioning its mining competitors there on the basis that their operations “fund terrorism”.
*
After having done my best to answer Knightly’s six thought-provoking questions about Afghanistan, I’d also like to address the bullet point summary of the official narrative about the withdrawal that he included at the end of his article. Here’s what he wrote, followed by my response to each point:
- Trump signed a deal with the Taliban, over a year ago, to withdraw from the country and hand over 5000 prisoners.
That’s correct, I have nothing to add.
- Despite having over a year to plan, the US “withdrawal” was chaotic and messy.
Yes, but that’s because the US didn’t establish military tripwires to deter Taliban attacks until after it withdrew and wasn’t successful in pressuring former Afghan President Ghani into compromising towards a transitional government, which would have required his resignation.
- The US accidentally left behind weapons, helicopters, ammunition and armoured vehicles, which the Taliban took.
It wasn’t an accident, that equipment was supposed to be used by the ANA or possibly captured by ISIS-K as part of the US’ “scorched earth” Hybrid War retreat strategy that failed to materialize. Instead, demoralized and sympathetic members of the ANA handed them all over to the Taliban, which the US didn’t anticipate.
- The US accidentally left behind 5000 prisoners, whom the Taliban freed.
Those prisoners were not accidentally left behind but were supposed to have released per the US’ prior deal with the group. Furthermore, if the US forces took those prisoners with them during their retreat, they’d either likely end up in Guantanamo Bay or in one of the CIA’s secret rendition facilities across the world.
- Without US support, the Afghan army, which outnumbers and outguns the Taliban, folded without firing a shot and the Taliban took control of the entire country in less than week.
That’s mostly correct, but this didn’t happen as part of a secret deal between the US, former Afghan President Ghani, and the Taliban, but due to how demoralized many members of the ANA were and how much some of them sympathized with the Taliban. I already explained my interpretation of events earlier in this article.
- Despite shutting down the heroin trade prior to the US invasion, the Taliban now intend to keep it going, and even increase production.
Knightly must have missed the Taliban’s press conference that day or published his piece before it happened since he’d otherwise have known that the group’s representative reimposed its ban on the drug trade. They don’t intend to keep it going and requested international support for farming alternative crops.
Drawing to a close, I’d now like to respond to Knightly’s final points:
“Do you believe the story? Is it at all believable?”
Yes, I do. The Western Mainstream Media didn’t go into details elaborating on each of its narratives since they never really do that anyhow. Their audience doesn’t usually ask for that and plus many of them might have difficulty understanding some of the finer points that I explained.
“It seems fairly obvious, to me anyway, that US gave weapons and vehicles to the Taliban in exchange for a promise to keep the heroin production going (and maybe access to mineral mines, no word on that yet).”
I see how he reached that conclusion but disagree with it for the reasons that I explained. The US wanted a transitional government partially comprised of the Taliban but hadn’t intended for the group to seize power so swiftly and take all control of military equipment. The Taliban also isn’t in cahoots with the CIA’s heroin trade.
“Meanwhile, the ‘fall out’ of the totally manufactured ‘chaos’ is being used to fan the flames of fear-porn. Promoting division over asylum seekers and spreading panic about terrorism.”
I agree that the optics are being exploited but regard some of the chaos as naturally occurring as I explained. The perception of chaos all across Afghanistan is certainly manufactured, but the chaos at the Kabul Airport genuinely exists and at least 7 people have already been killed there in unclear circumstances because of it.
“In short, the Afghanistan story, as related by the mainstream press, is a twisted illogical ball of confusion, intended to provide fuel for future narratives of control.…which is pretty much true of everything in the news, these days.”
I don’t think it’s a twisted logical ball of confusion, just that it’s not being fully explained to the public as is usual, though the story is still definitely being exploited for a plethora of ulterior reasons.
Nevertheless, I respect Knightly’s right to see things differently and sincerely enjoyed reading his article and responding to it.
Andrew Korybko is an American journalist and political analyst. You can read more of his work at One World Press, or follow him on Twitter.
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when Andrew says “Russia debunked”, you know that it’s time to switch the channel, not proceeding even to read what exactly Russia “debunked”. Russia is irrelevant at the moment. Russia is no longer independent or sovereign country and as for now , fully does everything nwo script says. Mr “Who is Mr. Putin” is just another puppet like biden, merkel, johnson, trudo, andrews etc etc. They all are colonial governors and work for nwo. Do not put any hopes on Russia- when fascist nwo will be installed all over the world ,including of course europe, red army will not be coming to free “covid deniers” from new quarantine “osvencims”. You better expect that “red army” will be one of those guarding those new “osvencims”. There’s a small chance that after September elections , when “who is mr putin” regime will start drastically “tighten nuts” on Russian people, revolution of some sort will begin. If it will happen, then it will be extremely bloody civil war and it will be “either us or them”. Say, just for argument sake, that if revolution will win, then it might bring some hope for the rest of the world. As one of the nwo talking heads-klaus “schwanz” schwab said- for great reset to happen, three countries should be in: Russia, China and USA. So if Russians would somehow manage to overthrow Kremlin traitors, they then would leave the “coroni world games” and nwo plans would be put on hold, at least for a while. This Autumn is going to be rich in events.
So now it’s time for Tallywood?
I listened to about 20 minutes of the BBC’s Today programme this morning and noted that about 95% of the time was devoted to Afghanistan.
https://www.sott.net/article/457173-Afghanistan-The-End-of-the-Occupation-and-the-Use-of-Feminism-as-Propaganda
https://m.journal-neo.org/2021/08/19/the-afghanistan-debacle-zalmay-khalilzad-and-the-great-reset/
I’d like to revise my assessment of the staging of the plane because I think it’s important to get it right. My original post, based on this video by Skepticon, said it was a “float” and I still think it is essentially a float but not that the plane is “aired up” rather it is, as suggested by lost in a dark wood, a real plane that has quite possibly been decommissioned and used for training – I missed the “aired up” from ‘Skepticon – I always thought it was a real plane.
https://153news.net/watch_video.php?v=SD5161A9KAUD
The plane is essentially being towed like this plane here being towed by a Tesla but instead of the towing vehicle being in front it is under the nose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvk4fNxF0l4
There are numerous angles from which to determine that the plane is staged:
1. Contradiction of reality. There is simply no reality in all these people being allowed to hang off a plane in that manner with the pilot taxiing along and flying into the air regardless and that Afghans would attempt to do that in the first place. That is NOT reality.
2. Very unsurprisingly, we do not see the plane take off. We see it allegedly taxi and we see it in the air allegedly dropping people but we don’t see the crucial footage of take off. Why not?
3. The quality of the video is deliberately poor. You cannot make video of so poor quality without it being deliberate. Why would anyone do that?
4. There looks to be some kind of vehicle under the nose of the plane that people are hanging off. In the case of the sides of the plane I think, as Roberto says, people are just sitting on the wheel-fairings, there isn’t another vehicle as stated by Skepticon.
5. The people are not acting like desperadoes. We see a person sitting looking at his phone nonchalantly on the wheel-fairing and the person waving his arms doesn’t look particularly worried, does he?
There is absolutely no reason in the world to think that this is not a staged event and if anyone has an argument that it wasn’t I’d love to hear it. I’m sure others can point out other anomalies undermining its credibility.
‘There is absolutely no reason in the world to think that this is not a
staged event and if anyone has an argument that it wasn’t I’d love to
hear it. I’m sure others can point out other anomalies undermining its
credibility.’
…..
The video could also have been put together in a CGI department, which would be much easier than staging such scenes.
I’m certainly no ‘gamer’, but I know there’s some very impressive imagery out there.
Possibly but they haven’t done that yet as far as we know. I somehow don’t think that’s their style … and if they did it CGI then why not show the plane taking off with the people clinging on as it’s leaving the ground rather than the ludicrous on the ground > cut to mid air.
Maybe because it would have been even more ludicrous and more people would have noticed that?
I always keep in mind that many photographs/films have always been faked….a prime example being the ‘aerial dogfights’ from WWI,made with models….over a hundred years ago. As a child back in the 70’s, I thought those films were real, but my dad informed me otherwise.
Oh yes more ludicrous but it’s always hard to judge how ludicrous before people will reject, isn’t it? I mean I swallowed the 9/11 story for 13 years myself but then I offer the excuse I simply never really thought about it.
Faked aerial dogfights. That’s interesting.
‘Oh yes more ludicrous but it’s always hard to judge how ludicrous before people will reject, isn’t it?’
….
Yes, and that’s part of the game the hoaxsters play, to see how far they can go. I think.
I also think the numbers on the plane are worth a mention:
1109 which is a reversal of 911
The numbers underneath that add up to 22
(Remember Manchester – 22 dead, 119 injured)
All the numbers together add up to… you guessed it, 33
I don’t know what they are up to with these numbers, but they’re always there.
And when I came to look at your response the comment number was 223 which is 322 (Skull and Bones) reversed – that probly means something doesn’t it?
Yep, they’re on to us! 🙂
Yes. Another tell-tale sign is they always have the same handful of witnesses, victims’ family members appearing on different TV channels within a couple of days or even only hours of one another….and then repeated. There’s quite a long list, but the ‘Tunisian Beach Attack’ is an almost forgotten fake ‘terror attack’ classic.
I fully agree with above assessment. For their own safety, pilots would never accept conditions as shown in the video, unless they would be threatened at gun point.
With windows closed, the pilots have only a limited view to the rear of the aircraft. For that very reason, at start-up / engine run up, there is a person in front of the aircraft, reporting by hand signals or cable intercom into the cockpit, that the aircraft is clean of baggage carts, stairs etc. An aircraft on it’s own needs it’s engines running in order to taxi. When starting to taxi or driving through narrow curves, a lot of thrust is needed to keep the aircraft going. Then the wake of the engines is very strong, cars/vans have been overthrown when crossing too close. Understand human beings might be blown away several dozen meters, with resulting grave injuries. The close vicinity to aircraft engines is extremely noisy, everybody without ear protection will instinctively press his hands onto the ears. Long story short, the video must have been designed by some typical crazy Holywood producer using mainly CGI. The entire Kabuki-theatre is probably set-up to boost the „Caudenhove-Kalergi plan“.
Thanks, caveman. So you don’t think it was being “towed” by a vehicle underneath the nose, it was all CGI?
Following vid is showing a regular use of a tow/push-back tractor using a tow-bar
The „Kabul cartoon video“ is in sharp contrast with safety procedures strictly applied for civil and military airports. A simple hand-grenade could disable such aircraft for a very long period, and possibly cause the destruction of the aircraft with fire. Therefore the powers in charge will never permit the unchecked public to go close to aircraft or other vulnerable equipment. Afghanistan was always famous for „green on blue“ attacks, that means „friendly“ afghan forces would suddenly attack their NATO „comrades“. The US has obviously still enough forces on the ground to provide normal security for their personell and equipment.
“ I’m sure others can point out other anomalies undermining its credibility”
Literally nothing makes sense about this “story”.
The idea that US forces would have allowed anyone on to the runway in the first place is ridiculous. If, by whatever means, people had made it on to the runway there would have been no aircraft movement until it was completely cleared and secured. MPs would have used lethal force to accomplish this if necessary.
The unit cost of a Globemaster C-17 is over $200 million. This particular C-17 was presumably stuffed to the gills with diplomatic staff, CIA assets and PMCs, further increasing it’s value to the US. It beggars belief that they would have risked someone being sucked into the turbines when they could have solved the problem in a couple of minutes with a few dollars worth of bullets.
The US military is famously incompetent, but this goes way beyond incompetency.
I actually don’t know what to call it.
I came to Off Guardian to get away from what the Guardian had become. I’ll keep coming because of journalists like Kit Knightly his excellent evaluation of events like Afghanistan.
Fuck
https://twitter.com/i/status/1429167756155539465
I think the raison d’etre behind Bidens appointment is now becoming clear.
I don’t believe that America has ‘lost’ in Afghanistan anymore than that they went there to deliver democracy and liberalism.
There has obviously been some deal done with the Taliban and this involved weapons and freeing of prisoners. The defeat is simply the next stage of the globalists plan for the demoralisation and destruction of the West. What happens to the opium market will be the biggest tell but the CIA are not going to give that largesse up. As Assange Afghanistan was a techno-security elite operation from the get go.
The Biden presidency is a psyop meant to deliver both of the demoralisation and hopeless / helplessness to the voters and leave the Trump supporting right rudderless and in despair.
Simply the next stage in the destruction of the US and by proxy the UK and the West. You only need to go out into Town now things have opened up to sense the feeling of despair and hopelessness in the air as the country implodes following the globalists destruction of the economy.
It’s completely consistent with their plan for us. Noo Yawk is Kabul
People in the West should have been less gullible when governments told us they were spreading democracy across the world and that globalisation meant that “the people over there will do all the grotty work while we’ll be in well-paid jobs brought to us by the knowledge economy”.
To some extent, we have ourselves to blame.
Hamid Karzai,Pashtun. Ashraf Ghani (Columbia Uni Ed) Pashtun. Abdullah Abdullah,Pashtun. Zalmay Khalilzad.(U.S.Special Representative for Afghanistan) Pashtun etc etc. And the Taliban – Pashtun
other Ethnic groups, Tajik, Hazarra, Uzbek,Aimac,Turkmen and more.
Join the dots..
Karzai was a Dick Cheney flunky at Halliburton, A rather large dot ?
Meanwhile back at the plantation , the Canadian government has decided to open yet another ethnic ghetto using thousands Afghan “refugees” [ curiously mostly young men ] brought in and maintained at taxpayer expense , as an election gimmick I suspect . As infrastructure and quality of life continues to collapse across the country . I wonder if they will be required to be vaccinated? I suspect they will invoke a religious exemption.
Afghanistan: sustainable, unitarian, no-tax, mineral, herb garden paradise for The Investors.
The media bakes a fresh Afghan narrative daily: “Vacating Afghanistan will allow Al Qaeda to reconstitute,” is a common neocon line.
To frame Taliban, however, as ISIS is loaded. It overlooks the fact that Taliban are Afghans. They bear scant comparison with what another commentator called the cowboys of ISIS — hired hands and traveling wranglers.
Western democratizers and their NGO are like a hammer looking for a nail: every territory needs a Westphalian state with all its institutions, and a limousine full of central bankers in tow.
Afghans like limited government, with small taxes and minimal interference in their customs. They don’t mind if the central authority settles tribal disputes and rallies the tribes against invaders but it should keep out of their way.
Ironies pile up for the casual reader. By now the anarchist or libertarian perhaps has a sneaking admiration for the Afghan. There is a shock in store for the conventional liberal, however. The Pashtun and the corporate power broker both favour the least-possible intervention, regulation or tax.
Lest the Western liberal reader cough up his or her coffee, this ordered anarchy bears an intriguing resemblance to the Rules-Based International Order, which according to Wikipedia sits at the heart of economic and political liberalism.
Let’s look at this through the globalist language as used by Rockefeller and UN Agenda 21 and what UNESCO calls, “building peace in the minds of men and women.”
Subsidiarity — central authority does only tasks that can’t be done at a more local level
Interdependence — cooperative engagement, social stewardship
Communitarianism — individual rights are subservient to the extended ‘family’
Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements — villages govern themselves
Common Values — differences in relative power exist but shared values come first
Unitarianism — Wahhabist puritanism invokes pervasive totality like secular humanism
Defund the Police — shared values make external force redundant
That is tongue-in-cheek but it sounds like paradise for Western miners and commodity firms.
Anatole Lieven also perceives some of these commonalities for he states:
My coffee-stained reader might object that Afghanistan is a violent bad land precisely because it lacks a state. Like any community it struggles to accommodate outside influences and physical dislocation such as refugee flows, especially when these are multiplied by wars and the financial power of the global heroin trade.
But, again, isn’t that exactly the system The Investors and Warmongers prefer? Like Iraq, Libya and very nearly Syria: a failed state where there is no government middleman to extract his fee and where military contractors provide protection to foreign commodity firms as they pump the oil and gas, dig the minerals and curate their herb gardens.
What other explanations are on the menu:
That latter article is instructive. NY Mag Intelligencer suggests the Pentagon is using White House correspondents to defend its 20-year Afghan performance, while making the case for continued presence in the region, accusing ‘miscalculating’ civilian leaders of betraying military honour.
In some quarters, military strategy in Afghanistan is reframed as a triumph: see how 2,500 military and foreign service were able to hold back the tide, and see what deluge follows their departure. In Britain, Tony Blair condemns the retreat as “imbecilic.”
And in the background is the ever-present drumbeat of war: the neoliberal propaganda that says war guarantees human rights. The occupation has not made Afghan lives more secure. More live in poverty, 55 percent in 2017 against 34 percent in 2007, according to the World Bank.
Finally, Wikileaks has republished a quote from Julian Assange in 2011:
That certainly comports with what we know of the power and influence networks.
I stick to my analysis of Aug 17th for now: the opium ain’t done. Afghanistan’s just being privatized along with its minerals, which The Investors are extracting, applying a mark up and trucking to China (where they they make or commission equipment for their Smart Cities).
There could yet be some happenings to distract from Covid and Climate… First Vice President of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh now leads the remnants of the Northern Alliance from Panjshir valley.
The U.S. would do well to leave this mountain fortress alone; to let its people follow through on their expressed desire to negotiate. And perhaps to rethink the “bringing democracy” thing, especially now that the rest of us are being offered something different, namely The New Normal shorn of anything resembling democracy.
In full at: https://moneycircus.substack.com/p/making-sense-of-taliban-eurasian
An informative and entertaining read . Afghanistan is what the future is beginning to look like in much of the English speaking world. Smoking Opium is as old as time in human terms and many of us regard it as gift from the gods to soothe the masses , Marx got that wrong as well ? Religion is certainly not the opiate of the masses.
https://postimg.cc/34VMpdxh
For Pete’s sakes OffG! I may love you, but your bloody spam filter hates me! Repeated comments for different people going straight to spam now. And quite a lot in the last week as well. Thank you.
A single word will suffice to get the spamshit. It does not have to be controversial or
Obloquy.
I’ve tried one scenario after another to account for the Spam thing. But now I’m wondering if someone (who doubtless means well) is hacking into OffG’s comment algorithm and screwing about with the Spam filter.
Perhaps this well meaning soul sees it as a public service – forcing us to get our “news” from the TV so we don’t have to trouble ourselves over what’s actually going on.
Three words Howard: feck the TV. These 2 comments have been in spam over 3 hours now. I’ve actually had comments in there for up to 12 hours.
At least the trolls here seemed to have thinned out in recent days…
But now I’m wondering if someone (who doubtless means well) is hacking into OffG’s comment algorithm and screwing about with the Spam filter.
Do you not think they’d know if there was?
I honestly don’t know why so many on here take this so personally. I’ve never yet posted something that has not eventually appeared, even if it goes to the random spam check (it’s not a spam filter) first.
UK has had a problem with economic migrants for years trying to as documented, playing the system via Calais.
They put a particular strain on North of England council funding.
North East has 17 times per 1000 greater than the South East already. This is typical, put migrants in areas already struggling.
Home Office has promised that by 2029, the proportion of supported asylum seekers accommodated in each Government region will reflect each regions share of the population.
Well ok, but these regions this conservative alludes to like the North East councils and others need more financial help.
From war zones come asylum seekers
Private providers contracted by the Home Office are currently responsible for housing asylum seekers, accommodation for those arriving in the UK through any route is a pressure point, with increasing use of hotels during the coronavirus pandemic.
I don’t understand something: both Knightly and this one have the same two simultaneous and controversial claims. That the US lost AND that their withdrawal signifies a shift in their strategy. How can both be true? If they lost, that’s final, their objectives weren’t met. You didn’t stop the war, the war stopped you. You either withdraw the army because you lost, or you withdraw because you want to do something else, to achieve another political result, there or somewhere else. But both can’t be true at the same time.
They lost the battle but the war (against the rest of the world) continues?
the haven’t withdrawn it’s theatre for the braindead.
Dear Pentagon
Thank you very much for the hardware gift which we found to be in great conditions!
We would like to ask you a favour if you don’t mind.
It pains us to see those humvees unused and going to rust posing serious environmental risks.
As such, we would urge you to give us the keys to those humvees.
We also promise you, we will use these humvees to transport Afghan kids to school, including women and girls. That will surely move your heart to help us.
So, for the sake of the environment and sending girls to school, please send us the keys
🙂
Sincerely
Taliban
Meanwhile the covid withdrawal continues unabated – I had to search for the first covid story in the Mail this morning. The media have most likely been told to hype up the Afghanistan situation to hide the failed covid coup before the economic effects kick in. Desperation and failure seem to be the new normal for our rulers – happy days for the rest of us, though.
Off topic but …
Shock horror:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/21/keir-starmer-ill-paint-a-picture-of-my-vision-in-primary-colours
“Keir Starmer has told Labour that it has to modernise and become “the party of the next 10 or 20 years” if it is to stand a chance of winning the next election, as he vowed to place winning above his popularity across the party.
…
Starmer signalled he may be preparing to make a more explicit departure from the 10 pledges he signed up to during his leadership campaign, which contained many policies backed by Jeremy Corbyn and earned him significant support from the left of the party. Pledges included abolishing tuition fees, increasing tax on the richest and backing “common ownership” of key utilities. Moving away from them will mean Starmer faces anger within his own ranks.”
Off topic? By no means. New Liebor is part of the NWO that brought us Con-Kosovo, Con-911 (which includes Con-Taliban and Con-WMD under TB.Liar), Con-QE under G.Brown, and which continues on the same Anglo Zionazi Capitalist track that is now bringing us Con-19, and will shortly be leading the sheeple into Con-B3.
I used to think New Labour were bad – until Starmer turned up.
New Liebour are symptoms of a pan-European plague of laboratory-cultured political pathogens. Here’s one source of this plague, from Rob BTL today’s Saker Vineyard, on Germany:
“Elections are coming, and everybody is busy with backstabbing. Beware of AnnaLena Baerbock of the Green party, she had years training of the CFR that also spat out people like Barroso, Blair and Sarkozy to name a few. She’s not real, just a figurehead. Like scripted by a consortium in the background.”
I don’t know whether New B.Liebour has links to CFR but if CFR could breed B.Liar, Sarko and the Greens then any leak from that laboratory into British political life would be dangerous.
Why do you even bother with the Labour Party. They hate the people the party was founded to represent. At Least the Tories are honest about being greedy, acquisitive, imperialistic types.
What I can’t stand about the Labour Party is them being Neoliberals whilst claiming to be all lovey dovey for the least affluent in society.
“INTEL AGENCIES THROW BIDEN UNDER THE BUS FOR TALIBAN”
No, if they are throwing him under the bus it is for Harris or for some new Republicans they want as their next puppet.
Attention! Evil Taliban reinforcement meme:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-58292735
Note the suspects are all of the Arabian persuasion. Fucking middle Eastern Muslim anti-gays coming to attack our freedoms etc.
Sorry to pop your bubble but this stuff happens. It’s not a ‘reinforcement theme’.
A Spanish mate of mine was beaten up in Walsall by a group of asian lads for walking hand in hand with an Indian girl, and in Amsterdam in the vicinity of the gay memorial, multiple attacks have been carried out by Moroccans.
In my view, it’s dangerous to conflate everything with abstract narrative.
And most of the Pimps in Geneva are North African men aged under 30…..
Nothing in the news is accidental. And I am even more suspicious now that the article I linked to there seems to have disappeared on the main page to be replaced by this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-58271187
So the link has been established: homophobic attack from Arabs in the UK (cement immediate fear: “It’s happening on your very doorstep!”) morphs into general homophobia under the Taliban in Afghanistan (Extend “your doorstep” all the way to Afghanistan!)
And to make sure you get the link, the title given to this article on the main page is different from the one on the page itself.
On main page:
On article page:
A neat little segue from gays in the UK to gays under the Taliban to LGBT under the Taliban!
The incident happened on the 14th August, reported in the G on the 17th, which was where I initially read about it.
Those dates are important as they precede ‘events’.
What the media does with an existing story, how a story can be melted around a narrative is not a new phenomenon as we’re all aware, so you may well be right that there is an attempted manipulation of readers, but it’s post the incident, and I’m doubtful you’re correct.
The BBC aren’t exactly opposed to the import of 1000’s of Afghans, are they?
The fact remains that this stuff happens. Maybe the guys that got beaten up were friends of journalists so they got some extra attention. Who knows……
Oh, here comes the scarier bogeyman:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58293832
This looks like show.
Plus, Blair has given his view and as often it’s a pretty good pointer:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9915299/TONY-BLAIR-retreat-makes-enemies-think-dont-interests-values-worth-defending.html
Pfizer pays zero tax in Australia. A company, like all the rest, that pilfers from the purse that feeds them. A cause that was deafening not all that long ago from people that called themselves progressives.
Now we have an experimental vaccine, placed before our feet, asking for more money to reap from taxpayers.
Yet all i hear now from the “left” is the hum of crickets. I wonder why.
Maybe because their all full of shit like they always have been.
“Maybe because their all full of shit like they always have been.”
Comrade, if it wasn’t for the Real Left of other times little people like you and me would have been in quite a different place …
What different place?
As Lenin pointed out, the best way to manage the opposition is to run it yourself, and he should know. Perhaps he was managed opposition at some point in his creer.
Didn’t Sydney have a demonstration aganist lockdown saw it on the News quick and no masks?
And what’s that got to do with my comment. All i witnessed was fascism against peoples rights.
they’re not their
Until people realise that where their government is a monopoly issuer of a free floating currency, the taxation of any activity by citizens or firms that is collected by the government, does not fund that government’s future spending.
Governments that fit the above, can and should spend, until all idle resources that are available for sale in that currency, especially labour resources, are put to effective use. Unemployment of any resource in such countries is a deliberate attack upon its citizens by the ruling elite.
Do not get lost in this taxation narrative. Essentially taxation ‘destroys’ money, but it also allows governments to control the behaviour of both citizens and firms in order to create ‘space’ in the economy for the government to ‘operate’. There are no financial constraints on governments with these characteristics.
So in essence the worker, or should i say the taxpayer, pays off Government debt. To use that debt as they see fit.
It’s quite the oxymoron, just like your comment.
Non sequitur
To explain, government ‘debt’ = private sector wealth. Penny for penny.
That must be why the rich pay stuff all tax and the peasants are hounded for late payment. Incurred with interest.
Fair enough, economics isn’t my thing. Maybe my honesty got the better of me.
Hello Tom: I agree with your assessment. Civilians don’t seem to recognize the fact that any form of taxation is simple extortion and theft. Why should I pay some asshole to spend my income away on some spurious social mission? What a bunch of fucking morons.
A moron. At least i built things for society. What the fuck have you done?
Anything? Next time you jump in a lift, drive your car over a bridge or even when you start your car think of all the engineers that made that possible.
I don’t get off on understanding money.
And you know why, because i never wanted to end up a prick like you.
You fucking arsehole!
Hello Shin: I’ve worked in in a number occupations, and have plenty of engineering education and experience. I didn’t wait to be spoon fed, and educated myself at my own expense.
I am a prick. What’s your point?
Maybe because without police forces etc, the ones right at the bottom will come to your house, break into it and steal everything and if you try to resist, they might beat you up to smithereens?
Hello Rhys Jagger: I guess the folks who print money out of thin air can’t afford to hire a police force. Too bad…
BLOCKBUSTER NEWS!
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION! TRUMP! COVID! AFGHANISTAN!
Blanket and smother the news cycle.All broadcasters have same content.
Just like the gas stations that all have the same pricing=No competition.
That’s why people need to detox from MSM news and simply not watch any of it.
Off topic but I don’t care.
Change the name, eliminate the problem is the order of the day.
Australian approve name change from AstraZeneca to VAXZEVRIA. After all, few will notice. They are all dick heads in Australia.
https://www.tga.gov.au/media-release/tga-approves-name-change-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-vaxzevria
One Australian press report claims there’s 3 million AstraZeneca doses sitting in a warehouse, another says 6 million doses. Both reports claim Australians are holding back, waiting for the inferred safer Pfizer shots to be available (such discriminating consumers !)
Thus Australians are being psychologically manipulated to think the Pfizre experimental injection is “safe”.
Unreported, when the ‘nations workplace regulator’ was said to grant Australian employers a mandate to compel employee to be vaxxed, was remarks by PM Morrison. He indicated ‘the federal government would not be legislating to facilitate mandatory vaccinations…employers would have to be prepared to defend their actions in court’
Such omissions create the belief employers have a mandate to compel employees be vaxxed.
In place of a mandate the politicians are employing their political skills: bribery, bullying, blackmail.
Great role models for young Australians.
.
“The effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech declines faster than that of the AstraZeneca-Oxford jab, according to a new study [from Oxford!!] published on Thursday.”
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/pfizer-covid-jab-declines-faster-than-astrazeneca-study-2514056
That’s an example of pure, disinterested academic research from Oxford. I expect the next study from Oxford will find that the AZ-Oxford injection of naked viral RNA is likewise safer then the competition’s injection of the same RNA wrapped in an adeno-virus vector.
AZ and Oxford have a close relationship going back decades.
AZ’s ‘therapy’ isn’t viral RNA, friend….it’s spike protein DNA encoded within an adenovirus genome…which is a DNA virus.
Thanks for the correction. My apologies. So AZ is the same as Pfizer and the Russian injection? All of them insufficiently tested adenovirus vectors for the DNA analogue of viral RNA fragments. All of them equally safe or unsafe, we just do not know yet; dish it out and wait a couple of years to find out, like thalidomide.
“I havn’t had my jab yet because they are still testing it on the humans” — Lab Rat.
Why didn’t they go the whole hog – Vaxzevry1
Good one, David!
It translates to:
“Killevry1”
…- Vaxzevry1-6X-zevry2weexz-4eva!…
Abbreviation, Vax4Eva!
Fighting a virus that does not exist with a vaccine that does not work.
…’Paid for‘ with *Infinite* ‘money’, conjured out of *Thin Air*…
…- ‘Magine that!… 😉
Q: Should we concentrate on the more pressing priorities on your own post code.
A: Yes.
Everything we should be doing right now should be rallying and converting others that sit on the fence. Just because some countries have gone back to some normality lets not get distracted now. It will be back with you soon, you can be sure of it.
I have done no deep research on Afghanistan matters and Andrew & Kit clearly know far more.
But from whatever I have read over the last 20 years about Afghanistan, including the unjustified invasion of the country by the US using Sep 2001 events (which were clearly carried out by the Deep State itself within the US) as an excuse (a planned operation no doubt just as the PCR tests and vaccine patents were all ready before WHO declared a fake pandemic in Feb 2020), and also from the fact that some of the opium from Afghanistan devastated the lives of many of my country’s young adult citizens living in Punjab, India, I have a couple of questions of my own:
I would amend your statement some.. to say: private global corporate fascists (PGCF) interest that reside in Britain, Saudi Arabia, USA, Turkey, Israel, UAB, CHINA, USSR, and others are driving massive scale, global fraud, to profit from the nation state system. The PGCF are doing this mostly without the knowledge of the governed masses in the nations they each call home.
Part of that PGCF group is using the nation state system to force the political systems within these nation states to market, distribute and report back on genetic engineering experiments conducted under the brand name vaccination?
The nation state franchise is a system that collectively holds prisoner and divides the population (8 billion) of the entire world into one of 256 nation states. .
The 256 partitions hold captive 100% of the earths population and 100% of the earths resources. Each partition is governed by an economic system, a financial system, a social system, a judicial system, a political system that manipulates these systems by operation of law, and that controls the behaviors of its citizens and the use of the nations resources by rule of law.
The digital platform has given these PGCF access to the knowledge of the world, and at the same time, allowed them to sequester that knowledge so that no one can afford to gain access to all of it at any one time. They do this with copyright and patent laws and by licensing work to those who have special knowledge (Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, Real Estate Professionals, Plumbers, Beauty care people, and so on) ..
Afghanistan is not a USA failure, its a failure of the global oligarch who dictates to the nation states what each must do.. Afghanistan is a PGCF venture, conducted by and through a proxy, the governments that participated in the Afghanistan fiasco…
Really good points in both posts, R Anand, Eman.
Disparity of information is central. Supercomputers slice and dice the world. All built on Silicon Valley… IBM is still busy in the shadows behind Oracle and Msoft; DARPA behind Google, Facebook and Amazon and In-Q-tel behind the rest.
On the other side academic research is hampered by patents, regulatory capture, tax-exempt foundations castrating the curriculum, commercialised universities, scientific and academic journals long since controlled by Intel.
Your PC, purposely crippled, with a 1980s-era search function. Try to seek advice and you’ll be swamped by paid shills telling you you’re an idiot. That is intel & corporate manipulation of behaviour.
Corporations muscle in on open-source while they take the software you paid for and make it online-only. We are the cash cow, the guinea pigs, immolating in our Teslas and feeding AI.
But, hey, companies are free to take liberties. Terms and conditions apply.
Meanwhile, the real world is parceled out, bought up, locked down. Good observations.
Thanks, Mc.
“Supercomputers slice and dice the world. All built on Silicon Valley… IBM is still busy in the shadows behind Oracle and Msoft; DARPA behind Google, Facebook and Amazon and In-Q-tel behind the rest.”
Thats revealing, indeed. I still have to catch up with these aspects to the whole story.
And the points you made in your comment at https://off-guardian.org/2021/08/21/afghanistan-answering-kit-knightlys-6-questions/#comment-418259 were just brilliant!
Yep. Saying there are private global corporate fascists interest which reside in every country on our planet makes sense.
The points you and Mc make are interesting.
Hello eman: I’ve posted plenty of information for readers to ponder, yet most of my posts receive little attention. Seems people have some notion that their pensions will save them from the necessities of sentient life… >
A case in point: >
Excerpted from: Section 720 ILCS 5/38-1 – Forfeiture of charter and revocation of certificate [State of Illinois]
“The State’s Attorney is authorized to institute civil proceedings in the Circuit Court to forfeit the charter of a corporation organized under the laws of this State or to revoke the certificate authorizing a foreign corporation to conduct business in this State. The Court may order the charter forfeited or the certificate revoked upon finding (a) that a director, officer, employee, agent or stockholder acting in behalf of the corporation has, in conducting the corporation’s affairs, purposely engaged in a persistent course of intimidation, coercion, bribery or other such illegal conduct with the intent to compel other persons, firms, or corporations to deal with such corporation, and (b) that for the prevention of future illegal conduct of the same character, the public interest requires the charter of the corporation to be forfeited and the corporation to be dissolved or the certificate to be revoked.”
Section 720 ILCS 5/38-1 – Forfeiture of charter and revocation of certificate, 720 ILCS 5/38-1 | Casetext Search + Citator
There are similar revocation and forfeiture clauses in other US and National jurisdictions.
Hello R Anand: You ask: “Aren’t they a part of the same group of corporate fascists who are driving the current global fraud of covid and forced lethal vaccination?”
Yes. The same groups of corporate fascists control every governmental syndicate on the planet. Governments have become little more than sock puppets for corporate handlers. Civilian populations have allowed this take over, and they’ll pay the price of their enslavement with the blood and souls of their children.
I agree with you completely, Paul.
The puppet governments and their corporate handlers, all of them, will be brought to justice in some form or the other and not too far in the future. This thing will end, and those of us who survive will impart that to them.
The key thing is actually whether the Taliban ensure that the ‘Taliban’ share of any cake benefits the Afghan people or ends up in Swiss bank accounts of corrupt pseudo-religious extremists.
If you are going to engage with foreign corporations to extract minerals/oil/gas, then you only need to look at the wealth Saudi Arabia accrued through partnering with the USA to see how obscenely wealthy a very, very small number of Saudis became, whereas if you look at how Norway did things, you will see that one generation ensured that every subsequent generation would benefit from a resource that no-one in the country did anything to create….
You want to make Afghanistan a place not threatening the world, then create a Sovereign Wealth Fund managed transparently into which profits from mining and other extraction, from turning opium seeds into pharmaceuticals rather than illegal addictive drugs etc.
It would be a new ‘Best Practice’ situation in defusing a centuries-long open wound…..
Interesting point, Rhys, about whether Taliban will launder their share of the money overseas (like Saudis) or keep it in the domestic economy.
But I do not think it adequately connects to your point that about wanting “to make Afghanistan a place not threatening the world..”. Afghanistan never threatened the world in the way that the mainstream narrative wants us to believer.
Unconnected to the above, I think Taliban has been allowed to take over the rule of Afghanistan by the Global Corporate-Oligarch Cabal on the condition that they too become a kind of “sock puppet” (as Paul V would say). I say this because I saw how the Taliban spokespersons were wearing masks. Taliban has agreed to play along in the covid fraud and may have also agreed to force the vaccines on the population (although I hope I am wrong on this).
Since the late 1990s over 500,000 Americans died from opiates before US politicians bothered to do something to stop the opioid epidemic…
That gives an idea of how many deaths from experimental injections might be acceptable to politicians before they bother to do something…
Big Pharma made heaps from the opioid scourge…No surprise there.
I believe in my Body my Health and no-one has the right to come between a patient and their GP/MD or any medical Professional.
I echo what others have said about the way Andrew has conducted the discussion with Kit. We need more of this.
I am tending to the view that the Democrats/deep state feared the political impact of a massive influx of Afghan refugees on the scale of Germany a few years ago. Instead of helping those people they promised to help they just abandoned them. The Brits and others went out in their jeeps to pick up those who had collaborated but they knew the figures were in the thousands, not a hundred thousand or even millions – especially women and girls. Would the United States not have benefited from all these brave women and girls?
Australia has shown the world The Way. It redeployed its troops from fighting the Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan to imposing martial law in Australian suburbs..
.
But there’s light at the end of the tunnel for the locked down and kerfewed Sydney people.
Little Covey has told the government he’ll wind down The Spread so it can slowly re-open the economy – on condition companies compel employees be guinea pigs for risky injections, and that companies refuse service to the non-guinea pigged.
The government will continue to trot out before the TV cameras its Scary Premier close to the children’s bedtime… The Stuff of Nightmares
Very pleased to see this other side of the debate here.
Now that is integrity, giving alternative interpretations equal airspace.
I enjoy Andrew Korybko’s essays, as he does not shy from a devil’s advocate position (he probably would not use that term), which is important to counter the “wishful thinking” that is endemic in echo chambers.
People are more receptive to what they “want” or expect to hear (- which can be negative news).
Things that support our worldview.
We don’t want this place to be an echo chamber.
Looking forwards to more of Mr Korybko’s writings, although his field is geopolitics, whereas here we’ve been focusing on corona matters.
Another writer with a fresh interpretation is Tom Luongo http://goldgoatsnguns.com
who feels that the abysmal optics of the US departure are enhanced with the aim of sidelining both incumbent and VP, paving the way for a banker as president.
It’s absolutely necessary to abandon a fortune in weapons in theater of war. US taxpayers thus have to pay for new weapons for the next “war.”…”Unwinnable wars are bad news for the weapons industry. They will deny the existence of even such a concept as long and as strongly as they can. Because if you can’t win a war, why wage them? There will continue to be technological developments, but there’s no “throughput”. You can fire some missiles into some desert somewhere from time to time, and that’s it. The military-industrial complex is happy only…if and when guns and missiles and jets constantly need to be replaced because they’ve been lost in a theater of war, along with young Americans….Being as beholden as it is to the arms makers and dealers, has made America lose whatever edge it once had militarily. In the US weapons are developed and sold to generate the largest profits possible.”
I searched through the text for some mention of the “I” word. That’s right, “Iran”. Its large, its next door, it has cultural continuity and its had ample experience (40+ years) or dealing with unremitting hostility from the West.
As for a resurgence of AlQuaida, I think not. The locals might tolerate a crowd of Sunni cowboys if there’s money in it but not if they bring trouble. And they well — we still have excellent surveillance and strike capability. Even heroin may not be a problem, the market’s already saturated with opiods and its a well known source of collateral problems (gangsters) so its not in the nascent government’s interest to tolerate it.
Opioids hit the streets as a result of at first, pressure to restrict prescription, before there was little profit.
Fem. Groups knowingly or not also helped the hand of supplement industry that is well covered before ‘week weed in a bottle’ in a very good Nova program I watched years ago.
Again its all down to the individual, speaking of which I have talked to elderly people while in Mexico who occasionally smoked cannabis to help their arthritis condition.
I asked because it may have helped my mother in the UK out of interest, she died in 2001 and not sure when if it became available in pill form.
Iran and Afghanistan have been joined at the hip for nearly 3 thousands years; at the very least since the ancient Greeks used to know them as Persia and Bactria. So it is not surprising that our Mass Media with their “End of History” school of journalists cannot see any connection between the established Islamic Republic of Iran and the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The successive conquerors of Gandhara (Kandahar), some of it from Wiki:
327 BCE – Alexander the Great of the Greeks, by defeating the Persians.
3xx BCE – Chandragupta Maurya of the Guptas
185 BCE – Demetrius of the Bactrians.
97 BCE – Scythians from central Asia.
7 CE – Parthians from Siberia.
75 CE – Kujala Kadphises of the Khushanas (Turkics) from south-western China.
450 CE – Hunas.
568 CE – Persians, who been ruling the western part.
? – Arabs.
644 CE – Buddhist Turkshahis of Kabul.
843 CE – Hindushahis of Kabul.
1021 CE – Mahmood of Gazni; this ended Gandhara as a separate entity.
All i needed to see.
“The Taliban of today is remarkably different from the one that everyone remembers since it promised to cut ties with international terrorists, is much more inclusive of minority groups, promised to respect minorities’ and women’s rights, and aspires to pragmatically cooperate with the region for mutually beneficial economic ends……….
The US, China, India, Pakistan, and Russia will reshape South Asia. All of these countries except for India have common interests in promoting Central Asian-South Asian connectivity in the aftermath of America’s Afghan withdrawal, but New Delhi might act as a spoiler if it continues to formulate its relevant policies under the influence of geopolitics instead of geo-economics……
Using the language of capital, which is what connects the Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia of today, even if the names are different, a global order the author seems enamored of. International terrorists? Who? Are you seriously expecting us to believe the official 9/11 story? Do you believe it yourself? 🙂
I doubt U$A and India swing much weight there now. Perhaps if they learn some manners.
If they switch from growing heroin to growing bananas they could make “Hey Mr Taliban, tally me bananas !” their national song. courtesy of Harry Bellafonte.
“Afghanastan Bananastan” — courtesy of a Robert Redford movie.
Stuck in spam again! Please help!
Welcome to the new nomenclature:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/58243158
“Biden on Afghanistan fact-checked”
By the BBC ‘s “Reality Check team”
Neat, eh? The neologisms “Reality check” or “Fact check” took off with the big clamp down on “Fake news” a few years back. But now, the Beeb have extended this new verbal gizmo to “mainstream politics” as if to say, “We’re checking the big boys the same way we check everyone else!”
But what a hoot!
Politics is a theatre set up to present the desires of the ruling class.
The mainstream media is another theatre to present the desires of the ruling class.
So … one ruling theatre is checking out another?
But there is method in their hypocrisy. It turns out that the reality check only serves to boost the propaganda further.
To be checked:
“’We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong’”
The verdict:
“This figure is contested and considered by many experts to be a substantial overestimate. …A recent investigation by BBC Newsnight has uncovered evidence suggesting that the size of the army could be low as 50,000 – much lower even than these SIGAR estimates.”
Reaction clearly anticipated:
“Oh my God! We have even less cover in Afghanistan! We need to send more troops!”
(A bit off-topic) Are you working in an office? Lucky you!
:The new covid-free office – disinfection robots and thermal body cameras.
“Hands-free door handles, self-cleaning surfaces, antimicrobial paint, air-monitoring display tools, UV light disinfection robots, and 135 other measures at an office block in Bucharest are here to stay, say the creators behind what they are touting as one of the world’s most virus-resilient workplaces, which they hope will become the new normal in office design.
Entering H3, a five-storey building in a western neighbourhood of the Romanian capital, is like learning the steps to a new dance. A flick of the wrist opens the door, and a red line marks the spot at which to stand from where a thermal body camera 2 metres away scans arrivals for signs of fever. Those who are “green-lighted” can follow the tracks to the self-clean lift, step on one of two foot pads and be transported through the building, safe in the knowledge that a UV lighting disinfection system installed in the ventilation shafts is keeping them infection-free between floors.
Anyone whose head flashes red on the screen, however, is whisked away by a plastic-gloved “immune steward” into a nearby quarantine room: a glass box with a panic button and its own internal ventilation system shut off from the rest of the building. A “Viruskiller” apparatus on the wall, boasting three levels of fan strength, promises to remove anything nasty such as pollutants, mould or spores that may be infecting the air, with back up provided by a sanitising UV light on the wall”
1984 has arrived.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/21/covid-free-office-h3-bucharest-disinfection-robots-thermal-body-cameras
Ceausescu’s Revenge?
What happens when the power goes off? I hope they have candles and matches handy.
Perhaps that’s when the real lockdown starts?
So what happens to what is left of humans immune system with this type of shit….this is not about health and protection…this is about encouraging people to be ill and die as I am sure the same amount isn’t being spent on encouraging good health or providing support systems for that…
how many ways can they think up to reduce the population….
Never mind offices. Try the local supermarket.
Bland soothing recorded voices: “And remember to wear a mask at all times and maintain a safe distance. Remember we are all in this together…”
And who needs check out people? The same bland recorded voices: “Pleass scan your first item … press if you need a receipt…”
People shuffling robotically up and down the aisles always observing that safe distance. (I have often felt myself to be an extra in the Stepford Wives.)
I know what you mean George. And progressively, the products in the supermarkets become more and more processed and toxic. Perhaps its a blessing to be shut out of them?
A couple of points spring to mind.
This is not the first time the Taliban have banned heroin production. There is an argument that it was one of the CIA’s main sources of income and stopping the production was a contributory factor to the long-lasting war in a country that has known little peace over the centuries from would-be colonial powers.
Heroin-addiction and the shortening of life caused by it will soon be replaced by toxic vaccines and it will no longer be seen as being of great benefit as a eugenicist tool.
Not allowing the US to have bases in the country is a wise move, and one probably learned from the late Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan. Or perhaps even from Rafael Correa in Ecuador. It does not mean there will be no further military strikes, or that the western globalists, or even future eastern globalists, will not invade. But I suspect vaccination depopulation is the current globalist aim to control people and countries.
Mr Goss – I would advocate evaluating the financial feasibility of purchasing the opium seeds centrally and creating jobs in Afghanistan through finding expert foreign investors to create a pharmacueticals manufacturing plant, which could serve the Asian market from a low cost economy.
The real question is whether the price you could offer Afghan farmers could match what the drug barons could offer them. If not, you may need to eliminate the crop and try and find new realistic income sources created within Afghanistan.
Needs things that can thrive/do well enough in a climate that has almost no rain and plenty of heat 6 months of the year.
I was surprised to discover that the majority of the world’s legal opium production comes from Tasmania. The issue isn’t one of supply — there’s more than enough — and black market heroin has lost out to cheaper and more powerful synthetic alternatives. Although all borders are somewhat porous I think that the surrounding nations are a lot less friendly to smugglers than before (the CIA being notorious for its ‘informal help’ to these trade routes) so all in all I reckon the farmers would be far better off finding other crops.
it is amusing to see those who simultaneously contend that:
i) the MSM is lying through its teeth about covid (or 911 for example)
ii) the same MSM is telling the truth about the poor oppressed Afghans under the thumb of the Russians/Taliban – or poor oppressed Hong Kong ‘freedom fighters’ etc.
The corporate globalist (CG) owned MSM tells whatever story its CG owners want it to tell. The story always advances whatever suits the current CG agenda.
One day al Qaeda is the Good Guy for causing Russia to leave Afghanistan, the next it is the Bad Guy for causing 911, followed by Good Guy (when labelled carefully vetted moderate rebels) fighting the evil Assad and now the Even More Evil Taliban.
Question. If you asked someone from the MSM the time of day, what would he/she say?
Essentially we all want news of the world.
We can travel to Afghanistan to find out for ourselves…. OR… we rely on someone to tell us what is going on there. I don’t see a third option.
If you rely on someone else, then it’s possible they are telling you the truth, or a pack of lies.
Sounds trivial, but it is the fundamental human dilemma. How to discover truth about the external world?
Philosophers have wrestled with it throughout the centuries. That’s how Descartes arrived at ‘Cogito ergo sum’.
Anyhow, whatever you do, spare a thought for the indigenous Afghan people. Another Babylonian library destoyed in favour of an abandoned MacDonalds
Dire Straits – Brothers In Arms (link)
I’ll try again with the link….
BLAME AND PREJUDICE
Once again, the elites that created this defeat, are trying to evade responsibility and turn their defeat into a kind of victory, paid for by the tame captive masses of their own countries. It is blatantly obvious that we are facing another operation of privatisation of gains and socialisation of losses.
Those guilty for the disastrous humiliation and strategic destruction of the West, not only refuse to take any blame or responsibility for their ineptitude, political, military or otherwise, but, on the contrary, they are immersed in a propaganda operation for evading all blame and discharging their guilt into the population at large. A population that, with their powerful media and censorship, they accuse of, somehow, be ‘treacherously’ reluctant to bring the millions of immigrants caused by their bombings and illegal wars.
They are guilty as sin, but we have to pay for the damages they caused. They are the ones that benefited from the operations of their private and ‘public’ armies, their supply and contractor businesses, but we are the ones that have to shoulder the burden of their plunder and ‘private’ property. They blame and cash in. We take the ‘prejudice’. Déjà vu…!!!
And that’s as it must be – because it’s we who through our foolish “patriotism” allow the charade to continue unchecked.
There’s a whole lotta re-branding goin’ on. Meet the New Taliban Lite. Not completely woke as to alienate conservatives in their own country, but certainly a shade more woke to be acceptable to the international community.
Certain elements of what just happened in Afghanistan remind me of the war in Syria. The Taliban swept through Afghanistan like the SDF swept through ISIS-held eastern Syria, without a single battle. We were led to believe that ISIS were strong enough to defend themselves against the SAA and Russian forces, but simply evaporated (evacuated in helicopters, more likely) in sight of the SDF.
And then there are the weapons and other resources “falling into the ends of the enemy”. In Syria, that “enemy” was ISIS, in Afghanistan the Taliban. In both cases it’s chalked up to “incompetence”, that convenient cloak of plausible deniability. Keystone Cops in Camo.
The most effective form of propaganda is simply giving people with what they desperately want to hear, so that they’ll be eager to lap it up: in this case, that the US, despite a military budget that is larger than the rest of the world combined, can’t win wars against rag-tag militias in some of the poorest nations on earth (Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia). And key players in the wider Eurasian region, their commentators included, have their own agendas for going along with the surface narrative of a weakened US.
If it all seems to good to be true, then we must be willing to engage the notion that it isn’t (entirely) true. The Chinook helicopter hovering over the embassy, Saigon-style, is straight out of the movie Wag The Dog.
It should be no news that the Taliban cut a deal with the US. The negotiations for that deal were already started under the Trump administration. For various reasons, the Pentagon preferred to land the deal into the lap of Biden, whether it was to deny Trump the credit, or, if some terrorist catastrophe is in the pipeline, to use it against Biden in a transition to a Kemala Harris presidency.
It’s absurd that such negotiations would not be based on the principle of quid pro quo, especially given the leverage the US held during those negotiations. I’m guessing the Taliban were handed over the nominal rule over Afghanistan (perhaps only temporary), in return for the US maintaining exploitation rights over the countries reserves of lithium and other minerals. That would explain why private contractors are staying behind. Maybe it’s an exaggeration to call the Taliban Afghanistan’s latest puppet regime, maybe not. Time will tell.
In Syria, that “enemy” was ISIS, in Afghanistan the Taliban.
You cannot compare ISIS to the Taliban. ISIS was supported by Israel, the US and the Gulf countries. American pilots were forbidden to strike ISIS convoys. The Taliban, unlike ISIS are deeply anti-American and anti-Israel. The Taliban is like a Sunni Hezbollah but nowhere near their level. The Taliban is no puppet regime. I have the feeling they will follow the path of Erdogan and try to play the West against the Russia/China/Iran axis. Like Erdogan they will say one thing and do another.
ISIS suspects and families are reportedly from close to 60 Countries are in AI Hol and Roj Northeastern Syria. You are mistaken they are no Isreali jihadists, if you have proof post it, or shut up I am sick of this US UK Isreal bullshit from blame gaming morons.
Great article. A fine contribution to the debate by Korybko and Knightly.
I just thought I’d have a look at what Brendan O’Neill was saying on Spiked for a bit of contrast:
The Afghan humiliation is not only a military failure – it’s a political and moral one, too. Extraordinarily bad political decisions have been taken by the US, including its willingness to trust the Taliban and its belief that this brutal, misanthropic, misogynistic movement could be a player in the ‘international community’.
What a load of bollocks.
Those of you who occasionally look in on Brendan’s fanzine may have noticed that you are now only permitted to comment on the articles if you pay his wages. This new rule of course means that the only people who are going to comment on the articles are those who want to suck his dick. I mean, no-one is going to pay him money to tell him they he’s talking crap.
My attitude is simply this: What were we and the Americans doing in Afghanistan in the first place?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of the Taliban. But love them or loathe them, the Taliban at least have the right to be there – they are Afghans. We’re not. We had no right to be in that country engaging in imperialist “nation building” in the first place.
And what about Saudi Arabia, Brendan? That “brutal, misanthropic, misogynistic” country is already and for many years has been “a player in the ‘international community”.
O’Neill surely is the biggest hypocrite in British journalism. He bleats on and on about “elites” but runs a website that employs a bunch of elitist hacks.
And he also thinks it’s right that care home workers should be vaxxed. Now, I’m not anti-vaxx myself. You have it if you want it, but it’s not for me.
But forced vaccination (which is what that is) is absolutely not right.
Great comment.
Don’t overlook Piers Morgan!
“What were we doing in Afghanistan in the first place?”
Ask Disraeli. Or was it Gladstone?
I’m still a little pissed at the Taliban for destroying the statues of the Bamiyan Buddhas on May 11, 2001. The irony is, the Buddha would probably have applauded the act.
(No Nirvana in my future.)
The fake atrocity stories… the fake celebrity campaign… what could be next but the fake opinion polls?
https://dumptheguardian.com/world/2021/aug/21/half-of-britons-think-us-troop-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-was-wrong
The public hate the pull-out and love taking lots of refugees? Yes, of course they do. It’s just complete garbage. They want to create the image that there is just a clamour for their interventions, the public are simply demanding it. That and getting people to pay for their own repression are the two things that they love.
Slightly better reading:
https://mronline.org/2021/06/29/geopolitics-profit-and-poppies-how-the-cia-turned-afghanistan-into-a-failed-narco-state/
Another hypothesis
“The real gainer in this insanity is the globalist agenda of so-called Davos “Great Reset” cabal who are using it to destroy the global influence of the United States, as Biden domestically destroys the economy from within.”
Read F. William Engdahl’s
“THE AFGHANISTAN DEBACLE, ZALMAY KHALILZAD AND THE GREAT RESET” – http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO19August2021.php
Thanks for Link to the authoritative FW Engdahl. He names some of the poisonous scorpions in the rotting woodwork of the U$ regime; in particular one Khalilzad:
“The fall of Afghanistan was not the result of an “intelligence failure” by the CIA or a military miscalculation by Secretary Austin and the Pentagon. Both knew, as did Khalilzad, what they were doing. When Austin approved the abandonment of the strategic Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, without notifying the Kabul government, it made clear to the US-trained Afghan army that the US would give them no more air cover. **The US even stopped paying them months ago, collapsing morale further.** This was no accident. It was all deliberate and Zalmay Khalilzad was central to all. In the 1980s his role helped prepare the 1996 Taliban takeover [under Clinton], in 2001 the Taliban destruction [under Bush], and now in 2021 the Taliban restoration [under Biden].
No nation — not Taiwan, not Japan, not Philippines, not India, not even Australia — will trust Washington to hold to its promises of protection. The fall of Kabul is the end of the American Century.”
A couple of years ago, Putin used a Russian word to describe USA as not agreement-capable. That means no credibility.
That Afghanistan is ‘happening’ is because the media needs a lightning rod for the turmoil that’s taking place in the streets of the major cities of France, Australia, etc because of convid. That what they show from Afghanistan is so obviously fake, shows me that they’re not even really trying. They also want it to end. Enough is enough.
Several countries, including NL, are going back to some sort of ‘old normal’ ie no more social distancing, mouth masks, and vaccine pushing.
And whatever happened to India? News has become absolutely silent about India. They all died there?
They want this to end.
As Loverat says below, credit to the people at OffG for publishing this piece.
FWIW, I believe there is more to this development than spectacle, as claimed by Escobar and Marandi.
In any event, it appears to have deeply displeased the British establishment, and that in itself is very interesting.
The secret stockholders of Blackrock & Vanguard own the supply chain.
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/08/21/puppet-master-portfolio.aspx
And within this article is a refreshing 6-minute video of Dr. Dan Stock on covid. The video went viral, so you know what youtube did.
Dispossess those stockholders. There is no other way. A step back from concemnation and justice is suicide.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTiswS3E6I
Is it a bird ? A plane? An inflatable plane? A carnival plane? Psy op 101😎
Funny how obvious it is when you know what to look for.
And to see Pompeo et al acting like this is real is sickening.
Interesting points in the vid, but I’m always apprehensive about sharing ‘flat earth’ channels as it is then open to the good old ‘discredit-by-association’ tactic. There are some great vids out there exposing the space exploration hoax/scam but sadly, they often come from ‘flat earthers’.
The ‘flat earth’ subject was/is a hype/PsyOp promoted by the ‘space exploration’ hoaxsters. imo.
…- A Lead Zeppelin?… 😉
(…- The *Dead* giveaway, like the guy says at the end of the vid: – *No* compressor sets inside the engine intakes and the ‘windshields’ are just black panels (not transparent, ie: not glass)…)
…- Here’s a *Real* C-17 for comparison:…
Highly recommended:
https://annebonnypirate.org/2021/08/17/afghanistan-the-end-of-the-occupation/
I learned abaout it on https://www.moonofalabama.org/
👍
I’m not one to be a downer,But we are looking for answers to the restrictions that’s happening now we are looking for answers,We want this to go away because all it says is we are filthy rich and we own you and we make your decisions this ain’t what I signed up for.